


There Are Days Like This

by heroictype (swanreaper)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos has ADHD and autism, Cecil has anxiety at least, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Illness, Neurodivergent Headcanons, my headcanons are less certain for him, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 20:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6344356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanreaper/pseuds/heroictype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, you have a bad day. Sometimes, so does the one you love, and you both say things you shouldn’t. But then, you decide on what you should say, what you should have said to begin with, and it's alright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Are Days Like This

**Author's Note:**

> So this is more or less what it says on the tin, with warnings for mentions of self-harm, as well as anxiety-related issues. I posted this one on tumblr first, so I'm playing catch-up a bit here.

There were days like this.

There were days when Cecil could not move, except that he did. But he felt the shadows in his bones, in the space between his joints. He felt the shadows around him, and they gummed him up, and he could not move. This paralysis, this stillness, gripped everything but his heart, which beat on and on, faster and faster. Only, he had a show to do.

There were days when Carlos could not think, even though that was what a scientist did. He breathed, and worked automatically, but automatic functions were not enough for a scientist. A scientist needed precision. A scientist needed calculation, even when the simple bustle of a laboratory caught in the gears of his brain and ground it to a halt. Only, he had science to do.

It had been a long day, and the night was looking long, too. The show was over and the science was done, as much as these things could ever be complete while these men lived.

They were in bed. Carlos was reading something on his phone, only he didn’t really know what. He’d clicked on article after article, desperately trying to make something connect inside. Cecil was flipping through tomorrow’s script and whispering to himself.

Carlos squeezed his eyes shut, and asked, “Could you… not? Please. I’m sorry.”

“What?” Cecil didn’t look up, but his finger froze where he’d been tracing the words. _Listeners, you know I do not like delivering bad news…_ His fingertip rested under the word “like,” and he frowned. For a moment, he lost himself in those four letters, in their black loops, like mountains. Or like what mountains would be, if they existed. Terrible, vague, and looming.

His head jerked up this time, when Carlos spoke again.

“The… the talking. The muttering. Sorry.”

“I’m just thinking,” Cecil replied, and he shut the script and pressed it to his chest.

“You’re thinking aloud,” Carlos said. He locked his phone, and then pressed the button again, teasing his fingertips over the lock screen.

“Well… Sometimes I like to practice. Does that bother you?”

“Not usually. Not always. Sometimes, it’s… noise.”

There was a silence, breathless. The kind of silence where even thought had to pause for a moment, and everything was fragile in the stark clarity that followed.

Cecil broke it. He knew that what he said would break something, and yet, it was so hard to stop the words once they were on his tongue. And his heart was beating so fast. “I see. I’m sorry for being so noisy. I’ll shut up.”

“Oh. That’s not…” But there was a part of Carlos that was glad. The part of him that just wanted silence - not a silence like before, but the kind of silence that was also space, calm and still. Maybe he’d do a study on variations in silence, one day.

“That’s not what? What you wanted? What you meant to say? Just rogue words escaping your lips?” Cecil said, and the words were not beyond his control, but he wished that they were.

Carlos’ face twisted, and his eyes gained a certain wet sheen. Cecil thought it might be a good time for a bloodstone sacrifice. At least then he’d be doing something useful, and only hurting one person, a person that did not even matter that much if they could allow such terrible phrases to depart their lips.

Then Carlos rolled onto his side, and snapped, “No. You were being noisy. It was distracting me. Everything is distracting me. There. Is that clear enough?”

The scientist drew a pillow over his head, and clamped his arm over that. Underneath it, he breathed so heavily that the fabric grew damp and hot, and it felt like someone had pinned his lungs to his heart and wound his intestines around that. It was not a very scientific feeling, that wasn’t how organs worked, and yet. He focused his energy on trying not to cry, but he did not have much energy, so a few muffled heaves escaped.

Still, that was better than thinking about Cecil, about the way the man sort of froze and stared when he was upset. Like, really upset, when something cut him, not like when Steve Carlsberg spoke. It was better than thinking about the harm he had just inflicted, when a scientist was supposed to be helpful, and a boyfriend was supposed to be, you know, nice.

Cecil stared at the scientist’s back. It was only covered by a t-shirt, not a lab coat, which was somewhat unusual even in private. One layer of fabric between them, and so much more. He almost wanted to touch Carlos, to reassure him. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all… But there were more ways to communicate than just words. Cecil did not, however, for three reasons. These, at least, were not hard to place.

The first was that his heart was beating so hard, and he thought if Carlos flinched away from him, it would rupture. The second was that he probably didn’t deserve to touch Carlos right now, anyway. The third was that, yes, he was a little mad.

A little, but frankly, it hardly mattered compared to the rest of the thoughts that, somehow, prickled along his blood vessels. _He’s probably never going to talk to you again, you ruined this, this one thing that really mattered, but no, you really can’t ever keep your mouth shut, can you? It’s just impossible._

He opened his mouth, and shut it. He opened his script, and began to read it again. He tried to do so silently, but soon enough, he was mouthing along and whispering, just here and there. Just to check how it sounded. He trembled softly, and the pages crinkled in his grip, but he didn’t know how to stop. He had to let out something, and he couldn’t even tell if Carlos was still awake.

He couldn’t stand not knowing, either. He’d probably throw up, however Carlos responded, so he didn’t have much to lose. He said, “Hey, Carlos?”

“‘M sorry.” The reply came almost immediately. The words had been hovering behind Carlos' teeth, where his tongue tapped, for what felt like an age. He was in fact immeasurably grateful that Cecil gave him a chance to voice them.

They were also not at all what Cecil had expected. He had played out, so many times, the scientist’s perfect voice telling him, _I’m leaving, I don’t want to see you anymore, I don’t think we can be an ‘us’_ that it might as well have been an actual recording. So that shot his plan to go hide in the bathroom while Carlos gathered his things or did whatever he needed to do right out. He had to come up with something else.

He spoke slowly, “No, wait, hey. I’m sorry. I mean. You’re right, I didn’t think about how it might be distracting, and-”

“And that doesn’t mean I should’ve snapped at you. But then, I guess… you snapped at me, too. So… we shouldn’t have snapped at each other. I’m sorry.” Carlos shifted the pillow so that he was actually lying on top of it, although he did not turn back to Cecil, and his hand stayed clenched in the pillowcase.

“Well. I’m sorry, too.” He hesitated, his fingers curling in the air for a moment, and then placed a hand on Carlos’ shoulder. “It’s been a rough day. Hasn’t it?”

“Exactly. I’m sorry,” the scientist said again. He swallowed, but the lump didn’t leave his throat just yet. “Ceec…?”

“Oh! Yes?”

The scientist bit his lip. Maybe Cecil was noisy sometimes, but just the same, sometimes noise was a good thing. Cecil’s voice was steady and warm, reliable in a way that so few things were outside of science, so perhaps it could help on a day when science couldn’t. He found that he very badly wanted to listen, to just filter out everything else and let that voice fill him up. 

Carlos asked, “Would you… read that to me?”

“What? Are you sure about that?” 

“Yeah. Yes. If you’re reading it to me, then… That’s what I’m doing, not a distraction. I’d like that. Listening to you. And you can do what you need, too.”

“Alright. Thank you…” Cecil’s heart did not lighten, but it was like someone had threaded in a few extra veins to help bear the weight. A smile tugged at his lips as he flipped back to the first page, and began again. This time, he did not restrain his gestures. “You wake up. ‘Good morning!’ Your family tells you. You have never seen them before, but they are your family, and you should cherish them. Welcome to Night Vale…”

He read on for a while. Eventually, Carlos turned onto his other side, and placed a hand on Cecil’s lap. The radio host took it without pausing, and the night became a little shorter than the day had been.


End file.
